The International Olympic Committee recently announced that it has approved the proposal of five new sports for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, including baseball/softball, flag football, cricket, lacrosse, and squash.

The 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles will mark the first time flag football and squash have ever been played. Baseball and softball were played most recently at the 2020 Tokyo Games, while cricket was last played during the Paris Games in 1900, and lacrosse was last included in the London Games in 1908.

“LA28” organizers announced in early October that they were proposing to add the five sports, saying these sports would reflect the “diversity, optimism and creativity” of Los Angeles.

While baseball and softball were most recently played in the 2020 Olympics, which were held in Tokyo in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they were removed from the 2024 Paris Olympics schedule. Despite this, baseball and softball are iconic American sports, and the 2023 World Baseball Classic recently set attendance records with more than a million spectators, highlighting just how popular the sport has become worldwide. The World Baseball Classic helped spark global interest and get the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognized, placing it back in the 2028 Los Angeles games.

Lacrosse is another rapidly growing sport in America. The sport is also referred to as “sixes” in other countries when played in a condensed and fast paced style. In the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, lacrosse will be played in its six-side format, which will keep the games at a high intensity and make them faster paced.

Cricket is also a widely popular sport across the globe but less so in the United States. Despite it being removed from the Olympics more than 120 years ago, it still has more than 2.5 billion fans, according to the IOC. Although America is not known for its interest and participation in cricket, the IOC is hoping the 2028 Olympics can bring light to cricket in America. The U.S. will also host the 2024 T20 Cricket World Cup, which should help introduce the sport to Americans who have never seen it before. 

The World Squash Federation had several bids rejected to join the Olympics, including London and Paris where the sport has become overwhelmingly popular. Reporters around the process of getting squash approved for the LA28 games said the World Squash Federation relied on its history and international appeal. 

The fast-paced sport originated in England in the 19th century and is played in more than 150 countries. Squash is similar to the U.S. game racketball, where two players are put into a room with a ball and tennis-like racket. The two players are competing against each other, smacking the ball as hard as they can off the wall so that the other player will have a hard time returning it. If the ball bounces on the ground more than once without a return, the opposing player gets a point.

A typical squash match is a best of five games, meaning the first to win three games wins the match. Each individual game is a race to 11 points, and if games are tied 10-10, the first player to build a two point lead will win the game.

Squash certainly has global appeal as well, with previous World Champions of squash having come from Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Australia.

Although Squash lacks mainstream appeal in the United States, American investment has been increasing over the past five years. The U.S. Squash Organization recently opened a $65 million public facility in Philadelphia, and squash is now a collegiate sport in over 60 varsity programs across the U.S. 

As for the Olympic Games in 2028, squash gives Egypt, a country that dominates the men’s world rank, a chance to add to their country’s total of eight gold medals. On the women’s side of the sport, The United States should contend for gold, where four American women are ranked in the top 15.

Pictured above is Ali Farag, the top ranked squash player in the world.

While squash will be interesting, it seems like the better add from an American interest standpoint would have been pickle ball, the fastest growing sport in the U.S. by a wide margin.

Regardless, the most appealing of these five new Olympic sports to Americans will certainly be flag football. 

Full contact football, as played in the NFL today, was last included at the 1932 Olympics when Los Angeles hosted its first Olympic Games. However, the IOC had denied the return of football in any form to the Olympics… until now. 

Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, has been a vocal advocate for the return of football to the Olympics. “The NFL is committed to working together to strengthen flag football’s place in the Olympic movement long term,” he said in a recent statement on behalf of the NFL.

Adding flag football to the Olympics will be huge for the rapidly growing fan base across the globe. Twenty years ago, the NFL started youth flag football programs overseas, and today these programs have more than 700,000 kids from 12 different countries participating in flag football. The NFL has also been growing their global community by playing at least one game at Wembley Stadium in London per season since 2007. Now, the NFL has three International sub-series, including games in London, Mexico, and Germany.

Because football is the most popular sport in the U.S, this could help bring in record breaking viewership numbers for any Olympic sport. According to Front Office Sports, the NFL is currently having record high viewership with an average of 18.94 million TV and streaming viewers. Adding this audience to the Olympic viewership could help make flag football hold a spot in future Olympic games.

Having flag football in the Olympics will also give NFL stars the opportunity to perform for the entire world for the first time in their careers. This opportunity is bringing both current and former NFL players advocating for a spot on the 2028 roster.

Legendary NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski expressed his interest in playing for the United States in 2028 in an interview with TMZ. “Hopefully there’s no tryouts and they just accept me. But I’m in. I’m going for that if there is flag football in the Olympics in 2028.” Meanwhile, current NFL star wide receiver Tyreek Hill is calling upon his fellow NFL competitors to join him for the 2028 Olympics. In a recent tweet Hill said, “Calling all NFL guys let’s bring one home.”

Overall, the addition of these sports to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will make it one of the most popular and diverse Olympic Games in history.